


close enough to lose

by wastrelwoods



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Casual Sex, Face-Fucking, Fingering, M/M, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, caleb....as a service top !?!?!??!! baffling i know but it just felt Right, i mean. probably, molly's pretty and he knows it, some intimacy negotiations, trans caleb
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-25
Updated: 2018-04-25
Packaged: 2019-04-27 15:52:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14428986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wastrelwoods/pseuds/wastrelwoods
Summary: “I was gonna be a bit more traditional about it,” Molly says, tilting his head toward the two tankards on the table. “But as we’re here now…” His lips touch the corner of Caleb’s mouth, the hollow of his cheek, “Caleb, dear, I’d very much like you to take me to bed.”





	close enough to lose

Frumpkin lets out a loud mewl and jumps down from the table, and that’s all the warning Caleb gets before Mollymauk arrives. The tiefling sprawls onto the bench like it was built just to hold him, the shape of his body slotting warm and solid against Caleb’s side, one arm slung over his shoulders. “Come here often?” he asks, singsong.

“Mollymauk, this is not a good time, I am working--” he protests, half-heartedly, gesturing with the quill in his hand. “I am...I am very busy.”

“So I see,” Molly tells him, with an unapologetic grin, as he sets down two tall tankards on the table before them. Ale foam spills over the side, a short distance from the paper Caleb is copying sigils onto in his spidery scrawl. The original page was faded almost beyond comprehension, the corners of it eaten away by moths and decay, the ink losing its arcane sheen to time. The preservation of a spell is careful work. Caleb’s favorite kind, practically. 

He reaches up to adjust his spectacles, small grimy things that Nott insisted on gifting him, sized for a nose narrower than his own but helpful enough for observing the small details of things at close range. Mollymauk stays put, grabbing one of the tankards and drinking deep (Caleb doesn’t track the subtle movement of his throat in the corner of his vision, doesn’t even think about it, pays him no mind), resting his head on Caleb’s shoulder and peering down at his work. 

“What does it do?” he asks, his voice low and resonant in Caleb’s ear at this angle. 

Caleb clears his throat, doesn’t lean into the solid warm bulk of him with a sigh, doesn’t turn the little distance it would take to put them nose to nose. “A small...a simple thing. A mending charm. Useless in battle, but--” he breaks off with a little shrug, hopes that Molly will feel it and take his meaning. 

Molly hums softly, thinking. “There’s an awful lot of life happens between battles,” he says, after a moment. “No shame in cultivating a skill or two for times of peace.” His cheek rests against the linen of Caleb’s shirt, the curve of one horn pressing into the hollow of his neck, unwieldy but nevertheless not unwelcome. 

The nib of the quill is getting unbearably dull, all flattened out on one side, making the ink run unevenly over the paper, and Caleb traces one more sigil before sighing and putting it aside for a lost cause. “Are you looking for something, Mollymauk?”

There’s a distant chuckle from the tiefling, who sits up to take another long draught of his ale. “Distraction, mostly?” he says, a little sheepish. “Just hoping to take my mind off a few things. Does me no good to worry, I like to head that kind of thing off at the pass.” 

Caleb nods, takes the spectacles off and folds them and tucks them away near his holster. “I think that is something I admire about you,” he admits, still looking down at the page in front of him. “That you can remain so...level-headed. Unaffected.”

A gentle, tinkling laughter, a tug on his hair, pulling the loose strands of it behind his ear. “Oh, it’s a load of bullshit, I can assure you. I mean, look at this,” Molly says, setting his drink down on the table and displaying his hand, palm down, fingers splayed. The hand with the red mark near the wrist, the snake with its white fangs bared and its body curling up his arm to disappear beneath the sleeve of his jerkin. There’s an insistent tremor shaking through the bones of his fingers, the whole hand twitching and shaking as he holds it out. “Three or four hours, that’s been happening, and I can’t figure out how to stop it,” he announces, with a slightly wild grin that can’t reach his crimson eyes. “So I’m ignoring it! until it goes away, which it will. Unless it doesn’t.” 

Caleb looks between his face and his arm, trying to keep his expression carefully neutral, and then he reaches out to take Molly’s hand in his own, brings it closer and touches his lips gently against the skin, near the wrist. Molly makes a tiny, wounded noise, and presses in closer to Caleb, winding around him. leaning on him, with that easy display of trust that seems second nature to Mollymauk. “You want a distraction,” Caleb echoes, quietly, doesn’t fully realize until he says it that he’s asking a question.

Mollymauk answers it in an instant, resting their joined hands at the side of Caleb’s neck, kissing him quickly, firmly. Gasping quietly as soon as he pulls away, like he’s surprised himself. 

Caleb is quiet and still, but Caleb is not surprised. He has never been very good at this sort of thing, at knowing what to say or do or feel at the right moments, but he wants--

“Oh, that’s nice,” Molly says, ever so slightly breathless. “That’s very good. Could I do it again?” 

There’s a _yes_ and a _no_ both warring for space at the tip of Caleb’s tongue, but his fingers are still twined with Molly’s own, warm and solid and so very real that Caleb himself feels slightly unreal in contrast. “Please,” is what he manages, finally, tracing his fingers over the sharp line of the tiefling’s jaw, leaning up to kiss him again.

Molly meets him halfway, this time, kissing him gentle and slow, and his skin is so hot to the touch that Caleb’s lips almost feel numb by the time he parts them to slide his tongue inside. “ _Schiesse_ ,” he breathes, when he has a moment to say it. Molly’s hands are in his hair, at his waist, still shaking but holding him firm. The edge of the table digs into his side where he’s turned at an awkward angle to shift closer. 

“I was gonna be a bit more traditional about it,” Molly says, tilting his head toward the two tankards on the table. “But as we’re here now…” His lips touch the corner of Caleb’s mouth, the hollow of his cheek, “Caleb, dear, I’d very much like you to take me to bed.”

Caleb swallows a groan, feels himself leaning towards Molly with all of himself, drawn in. “Am I your distraction, then?”

Molly’s face is red under the violet cast of his skin, a pretty flush that makes his chains and rings and baubles brighter by contrast. His eyes are hot coals. “If you’d rather not, it’s no trouble--” he begins. 

“I want...I want the same, I think” Caleb says, and he kisses Mollymauk again, feeling bold with the head rush of it all. “I want you.” 

Molly laughs, but it is not the kind of laugh that follows a joke. It’s lighter, near giddy, like sunlight made sound. He reaches for his tankard and empties it in one long swallow (this one Caleb watches), slams it down onto the table again. “Well, then,” he says. “Well.” 

Caleb looks at him, as directly as he can bear. He does not, as a rule, rush into things. He prefers careful work, slow work, the kind that allows him to remain perfectly in control. In control is not something he often feels, around Molly.

He tucks the half-inked page into his spellbook, clasps that into the holster under his arm, takes Molly’s hand and follows where he leads. The ale he leaves behind.

“How do you want to have me?” is the first thing he says, soon as Caleb clicks shut the lock on the door, and when Caleb turns back he’s already shrugging out of his shirt, baring a long swath of ink-stained purple skin to the moonlight. It’s nothing Caleb hasn’t seen before, but much different, now he is being so blatantly invited to look. 

He glances down and fidgets with the clasps on his holster, mouth dry. Molly moves closer, places his hands over Caleb’s hands and finds the catches easily. Caleb shrugs off the holster and rests his palm, slowly, against the plane of Mollymauk’s scar-torn chest, pressing a kiss to a rose blossoming at the inside of his shoulder. “I cannot tell where to begin,” Caleb admits, in a small voice. His mouth...his hands, his cock...he wants too much, it feels like altogether too much, all jumbled in his head. 

“Wherever you like,” Molly tells him, ragged at the edges, running his hand through Caleb’s hair. “Whatever you want.” He pulls back, brings Caleb with him, sits at the edge of the bed with his knees spread apart, and Caleb realizes his control is being offered up to him, freely, like it’s nothing at all. 

He mumbles an oath under his breath, lowers himself down between Molly’s knees and sinks a hand into his hair, tugging sharply. Like a test. Molly’s breath catches and his red eyes gleam, but he allows it. Stares at Caleb with his lips parted and his jaw slack. Hungry. 

Simple spells and careful calculations are one thing, but Caleb knows with an ever-present dread the thrill of holding something deadly in his hands and bending it to his will. Molly is not a thing, not by a long shot, but sharp and scorching and deadly is the very nature of him, and Caleb wants to see him _bend_. 

“On your back,” he says, gratified when his voice doesn’t creak or waver with the command. Gods, it’s a strange feeling, commanding. 

Molly nods, sinks back into the blankets with his pointed teeth worrying at his bottom lip. The tremble in his hands has overtaken his arm from the elbow down, and his fingers pull at the sheets to hold him still. 

“Ah.” Caleb watches him arrange himself, feeling lightheaded, but oddly calm. “Your boots are still on.” He runs a hand along Molly’s leg, stops at the tie of the tall leather boot and pulls until it comes loose, peeling the whole thing off with an ungraceful wiggle from Mollymauk, who stifles a laugh. 

Caleb digs his fingers under the waistband of Molly’s trousers, next, and the laughter cuts off into a breathy sigh. His cock sits full and heavy against his belly, his thighs warm and soft under Caleb’s steady hands, his tail twitching softly against the mattress. He’s kneeling over Molly, Molly who’s nude and flushed and breathing heavy with want, half-grinning like he can see everything he’s ever wanted in Caleb’s face at this moment. Caleb sifts through his pockets as he presses a row of kisses along the inside of Molly’s thigh. 

“Don’t stop,” Molly murmurs. He props himself up on one elbow to watch. Always watching Caleb work. 

“I have hardly even begun,” Caleb protests, drawing out his vial of oil, unstoppering it. “May I?”

“Oh, gods, please do,” Molly tells him, with a low groan, and he shifts his hips up up up, drawing his legs apart with a sinuous motion that Caleb will spend the next month recalling in vivid detail, tail curling and thumping hard against the bed. 

He coats his fingers and hesitates, presses another kiss to the divot of Mollymauk’s hip before reaching down and gliding a thumb over his hole. He can feel the shiver that rocks through him in reply, feels emboldened enough to slip a finger inside. 

“Come on, Caleb, love, I can take more.” That red flush has spread as far as Molly’s chest, and his eyes are half-lidded. “You know I can take more--”

“I do,” Caleb tells him, tries to keep his voice low and steady. “Of course you can. But can you wait for it?” 

He moves, but slowly. Drawing it out. Sliding another finger in alongside, crooking them in careful, delicate strokes that make Mollymauk curl his toes in the sheets, straining up into Caleb’s touch. 

He holds out like that nearly a full minute before breaking. “Fuck,” he groans, reaching for Caleb, taking himself in hand. “Oh, fuck--”

“Mollymauk,” he says, feeling hot and sharp and deadly as tempered steel, “Molly, trust me. Let me take care of this.” His free hand catches at Molly’s wrist, pulls his hand back to wrap around the slats of the headboard. “Let me.” 

Molly follows his lead with a trembling sigh, mouth agape, grasping at the wood slats and arching his back. _Beautiful_. 

It makes Caleb feel generous, watching him writhe in such a perfectly lovely way, and he stretches him wider still. Small, precise movements. Careful work, Caleb’s favorite kind. He slides his fingers deeper inside of Molly, brushing over a sensitive spot that draws out a ragged gasp and a wordless plea. 

“If I wanted to make you come, with only this,” Caleb asks, and there, now his voice is growing hoarse. He slides his free hand into his own trousers, presses against the aching swell of his cock and grinds down, down. “Would I give it to you fast, or slow?” 

Molly shudders instead of answering, his thighs slick with oil and his silver-studded cock leaking over his belly. When he moves to speak, Caleb fucks him deeper, and his words turn to a series of shallow breaths and a long moan. Caleb likes to think ahead, to plan, and so he wants for a desperate moment just to see how long Mollymauk could keep at it, fucking him until his legs give out and he cries mercy. 

The thought takes him aback a little, but he would warrant present company could find merit in the idea. “Surprise me,” Molly pants out, with an accompanying jingle from his horns as his head bows back.

Caleb swallows hard and quickens his pace, driving his fingers up at an angle until he catches on the one that makes Molly bite back a howl, and then hitting it again and again. Molly’s knuckles are white where they wrap around the slats of the headboard, and his legs tremble and shake with effort. “You are doing so well,” Caleb praises, with a quiet murmur, bending and kissing the inside of his knee. “Taking me so well.” 

Molly’s chest shakes with laughter, and he grins as he mumbles, “No trouble at all,” between soft cries and sharp curses. He’s still watching Caleb work, peering down at him with his face flushed and open and painted with a sheen of sweat. 

“But I want to see you come for me, _ja_?” Caleb knows he’s staring, the expression on his face must be something half-wild and strange, but he doesn’t want to miss an instant. Molly groans, his eyes falling shut, his hips canting desperately back against Caleb’s hand. “Let me see you come, Mollymauk.” 

It’s not quite so gentle as a plea, nor so harsh as a command, but something in between. A request, and Molly’s answer is freely given. The breath catches in his throat, and his tail twitches, and he makes a sound halfway between a gasp and a gurgle, clenching around Caleb’s fingers as he spills all across his own stomach. 

“Gods, you are beautiful like that,” Caleb tells him, still grinding down into his own palm, pre-spend soaking his fingers as they slide over his cock. He shivers, pulling out of Mollymauk with a groan and bracing himself above him. 

“I do my best,” Molly mumbles, with a wide, sated grin, lying there in boneless satisfaction, a gorgeous mess, looking undone and very pleased with himself. Caleb can feel the heat rise in his face as his hand moves faster. “Come up here, would you, Caleb, let me give you yours? I haven’t had my face fucked in ages.” 

Caleb nearly chokes on the moan that forces itself out of his throat, but he takes himself out all the same, crawls over Mollymauk until soft, scarred hands find their grip on the backs of his thighs. He lowers himself down into the waiting mouth, knees braced on either side of his head, and can’t hold back a whimper. Molly’s skin is hot, every inch of him, blazing hot to the touch, but it’s a different thing entirely with Molly’s lips wrapped around his cock. 

He drives himself down with a shuddering gasp, heat and wet and the insistent flick of a metal-studded tongue just across the head, and Caleb can nearly feel tears prickling in his eyes, it’s so good. “Molly,” he groans. “Molly, I am not going to last.”

Molly only hums underneath him, sliding his tongue over him again as Caleb grinds his hips down eagerly. His fingernails dig into Caleb’s ass when he comes, shouting, biting down on his fist to muffle the sound, holding him close, working him through it. 

Caleb pulls back after a moment, still trembling a little, and Molly licks at his lips, offering him a lopsided smile. “Good?” 

“ _Ja_ ,” he breathes. “Yes, good. And you? Are you distracted?”

Molly rolls onto his side, reaches for Caleb and pulls him into a kiss deep enough to taste himself. “Oh, _extremely_ ,” he crows. “Though perhaps you should stay a little longer, just to be safe.” 

That sounds, to Caleb, like a very reasonable plan. He sinks down among the pillows and lets Molly press up against him just as close as he wants. This time he allows himself to lean into it.

**Author's Note:**

> I'M BACK AND I BROUGHT ORGASMS because i thought maybe it was slightly unfair for me to keep writing about sexual tension between these two and never actually address that.
> 
> you can also find me on those twitter and tumblr platforms @wastrelwoods u know


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